Human Nature as the

Product of our Mental

Models
When we speak of human nature, we generally imply that we are
talking about something that is more or less fixed in its qualities
and properties, and that exists essentially independently of our
thought about it. In this essay, however, I am going to propose
that that aspect of behaviour which has been attributed to such a
fixed and independently existent human nature is actually a
continuously changing and developing artefact, created in the
course of human work and social relationship, and very much
dependent on how it has been considered in thought.

What is especially significant in this regard is that throughout all

his activity man has developed a way of thinking about himself in
terms of generalized models of what the human being is or ought
to be. When accepted as true, these models have served to
shape the character of the individual, who feels impelled to
conform, either through fear of being stigmatized as abnormal or
deviant, or through the sheer attractions of the models. Evidently
such models not only act as positive stimuli to certain kinds of
behaviour, but also function negatively as limits, tending to inhibit
exploration of new modes of thinking and new forms of social
relationship. That is to say, they are not merely structures of
abstract thought taking place inside people’s heads, but rather,
they operate in the individual and in society as functioning
realities which play a key part in helping to fix the bounds of that
very human nature, of which they are supposed to be a model.

A cursory examination of human nature shows many such

models, which serve in this way to shape and form human
character. Thus there is the ‘good boy’ who obediently and
virtuously does what his parents and teachers want him to do,
and the ‘bad boy’ who naughtily and mischievously insists on
doing whatever he himself may want to do. Then there is the
industrious hard-working person who stands on his own two feet,
and the lazy, shiftless person who depends on other people or on
the state. Examples of this kind can evidently quite easily give
rise to a vast totality of diverse models. All of these tend,
however, to be assimilated into broader overall sorts of model,
which can be seen to arise, develop, and die away in the course
of the history of human society. One of the earliest of these is the
strength, courage and other virtues of animals, the consideration
of which was evidently especially significant to early man in
helping to stimulate his hunting and fighting qualities. Then came
the power, beauty and goodness of anthropomorphic gods,
which served to give men a model more favourable to organized
and civilized behaviour. And now, we have the precision,
orderliness, efficiency and energy of machinery in the modern
technological society, which each man is encouraged to imitate,
in order to make it possible for such a society to function
coherently and stably.

Such generalized models evidently tend to fit in with the

prevailing world view, including the cosmology and the generally
accepted metaphysical notions. Thus the ancient Greeks tended,
to a considerable extent, to look on the universe as a single
organism, in which each part grows and develops in its
relationship to the whole, and each part has its proper place and
function. In this view, it clearly makes sense for man to try to play
his part by acting according to the ideals embodied in his notions
about the gods. On the other hand, in modern times, the
prevailing world view has been one developed especially in
physics: that the universe is like a vast machine, constituted of
separately existent atoms moving mechanically, according to
their inertia and their forces of mutual interaction. This view not
only helped lay the foundation for modern technology, but also
provided an intuitive theoretical basis for the assimilation of
human nature to the mechanical qualities required of men in our
industrialized society, in which neither the virtues of animals nor
those of gods can be given first priority. Rather, as has already
been indicated, the prime virtue in modern society is a kind of
effectiveness, efficiency, or productivity similar to that of the
machines which man has to operate. But this requirement goes
far beyond the context of machinery and purely technological
activities. Indeed, as there is no room in the world view of
modern physics for an organic order of reality that cannot be
revealed solely by measurements of mechanical kinds of effect,
so we are now discovering that in modern society there is no
room for regarding education or other such activities as organic
aspects of life as a whole, worth pursuing in their own right.
Rather, these activities have now to submit ultimately to the test
of whether they lead to useful results that can be measured in
terms of their contribution to the gross national product.

Evidently, then, the notion of effectiveness or efficiency now plays

a key part in maintaining the present industrial society and in
shaping human nature into forms that are suitable for such a
society. But every effect must issue from a cause, so that, more
deeply, what is implied in the current notion of efficiency is an
acceptance of that aspect of the prevailing cosmology and
general world view having to do with cause.

Such notions of cause have in fact changed in fundamental ways

throughout human history. These changes can be brought out in
a manner relevant to our discussion by considering certain key
differences between modern notions of causality and some of
those held in ancient Greece. To do this, we may begin by
reviewing briefly Aristotle’s distinction of causes into four different
kinds:

material
efficient
formal
final

A good example in terms of which this distinction can be

understood is obtained by considering something living, such as
a tree or an animal. The material cause is then just the matter in
which all the other causes operate and out of which that thing is
constituted. Thus, in the case of a plant, the material cause is the
soil, air, water and sunlight constituting the substances of the
plant. The efficient cause is some action, external to the thing
under discussion, which allows the whole process to get under
way. In the case of a tree, for example, the planting of the seed
could be taken as the efficient cause.

It is of crucial significance in this context to understand what was

meant by the formal cause. Unfortunately, in its modern
connotation, the word ‘formal’ tends to refer to an outward form
that is not very significant (e.g. as in ‘formal dress’ or ‘a mere
formality’). However, in the ancient Greek philosophy, the
word form meant, in the first instance, an inner forming activity,
which is the cause of the growth of things, and of the
development and differentiation of their various essential forms.
For example, in the case of an oak tree, what is indicated by the
term ‘formal cause’ is the whole inner movement of sap, cell
growth, articulation of branches, leaves, etc., which is
characteristic of that kind of tree, and different from that taking
place in other kinds of trees. In more modern language, it would
be better to describe this as the formative cause, to emphasize
that what is involved is not a mere form imposed from without,
but rather an ordered and structured inner movement that is
essential to what things are.

Any such formative cause must evidently have an end or product,

which is at least implicit. Thus it is not possible to refer to the
inner movement from an acorn giving rise to an oak tree, without
simultaneously referring to the oak tree that is going to result
from this movement. So formative cause always implies final
cause.

We also know final cause as design, consciously held in mind

through thought (this notion being extended to God, who was
regarded as having created the universe according to some
grand design). It must be emphasized, however, that design is
only a special case of final cause. For example, men often aim
toward certain ends in their thoughts, but what actually emerges
from their actions is generally something different from what was
in their design, something that was, however, implicit in what
they were doing, though not consciously perceived by those who
took part.

In the ancient view, the notion of formative cause was considered

to be of essentially the same nature for the mind as it was for life
and for the cosmos as a whole. One can understand this notion
in more modern terms by considering the flowing movement of
awareness. Thought can then be perceived within this flow as a
series of momentary product forms, continuously being created
and dissolved in the whole movement, as ripples, waves and
vortices are created and dissolved in a flowing stream of water. In
this process, one can in the first instance discern associative
thoughts, in which one step follows another relatively
mechanically, through association determined by habit and
conditioning. Each such associative change is external to the
inner structure of the thought in question, so that associative
changes act rather like a series of efficient causes. But to see
the reason for something is not a mechanical activity of this
nature. Rather, one is aware of each aspect as assimilated within
a single whole, all of whose parts are inwardly related. Here one
has to emphasize that reason is essentially a kind of perception
through the intellect, similar in certain ways to artistic perception,
and not merely the associative repetition of reasons that are
already known. Thus one may be extremely puzzled by a wide
range of factors, things that do not fit together, until suddenly
there is a flash of understanding, and thereafter one sees how
these factors are all related as aspects of one totality.
Fundamental scientific discoveries generally involve perception
of a similar nature. For example, there is Newton’s well-known
insight into the law of gravitation, in which he saw that as the
apple falls, so the moon falls, and so everything falls, under the
influence of the universal force of gravity. Such acts of perception
cannot properly be given a detailed analysis or description.
Rather, they are to be considered as aspects of
the forming activity of the mind. A particular structure of
concepts is then the product of this activity, and these products
are what are linked by the series of efficient causes that operate
in ordinary associative thinking. Likewise, in this view, one
regards the forming activity as primary, in nature as it is in the
mind, so that the product-forms in nature are also what are linked
by efficient causes.

In modern physics, formative and final causes are not regarded

as having a primary significance. Rather, law is generally
conceived as a self-determined system of efficient causes,
operating in an ultimate set of material constituents of the
universe (e.g. elementary particles subject to forces of interaction
between them). These constituents are not to be regarded as
formed in an overall process, and thus they cannot be
considered to be like organs adapted to their place and function
in the whole (i.e. to the ends which they would serve, in this
whole). Rather, they tend to be conceived as separately existent
elements of a fixed nature. Similarly, in society, each human
being tends to be regarded as separately existent and likewise of
more or less fixed nature. He acts on other people and on society
as a whole, in much the same way that he acts on nature, to
produce effects that he wants, and these in turn act on him in a
corresponding way.

In earlier phases of the development of this point of view, the

human mind was regarded as something completely separate
from the outwardly visible substance of matter, so that, in
principle, room was left for a non-mechanical sort of formative
and final cause in man’s ‘innermost soul and spirit’. But what is
implicit (and often even explicit) in the dominant trend of
development in modern science is that ultimately even life and
mind will be seen as reducible to nothing more than an aspect of
the movements of elementary particles, according to the
mechanical laws that govern these movements. This whole trend
is evidently in complete contrast with the ancient view, in which
people regarded the entire universe, including external nature
and man, as continuously growing and sustaining itself in each
part through its inner formative activity (e.g. the very word
‘nature’ comes from a Latin root, meaning ‘that which is being
born’, while the corresponding Greek word ‘physis’ is based on a
verb meaning ‘to grow’).

In recent times there has been an increasing realization that the

modern technological society has certain inherent defects of a
very serious nature, which may even prove to be insuperable in
the long run, if there is no fundamental change. Some signs of
these defects are the widespread occurrence of pollution and
destruction of the balance of nature, in a context of growing
overpopulation and the creation of a general environment that is
neither physically nor psychologically healthy for the people who
have to live in it. More and more people have thus been led to
question the modern technological model of human nature, some
implicitly and others explicitly. Such questioning naturally leads
to the consideration of alternative models. Thus, could we revive
some form of the organic model favoured in ancient times? Such
a model might, for example, help us to see the proper limits of
the notion of effectiveness or efficiency, by making it clear that
this notion is a sensible one only in the context of a rational and
coherent common end, which really acts as a kind of general
formative cause that pervades all of our activity. The difficulty
with the modern technological view of human nature is indeed
that efficiency itself has tacitly been taken as the ultimate end of
all human activity, so that it has not been noticed that what is
called efficient in one context may actually be fragmentary and
destructive in a broader context. Evidently some sort of organic
view of reality could at least in principle help not only in this
regard, but also more generally, to orient men toward a sense of
unity and common purpose, in which material and mental
aspects were not divorced.

Nevertheless, a closer inspection shows that such an organic

view may also have certain very serious inherent defects. For
example, in ancient times, slavery was often justified by
comparing different kinds of men to different organs of the body
(e.g. the master to the head and the slave to the limbs). The more
modern mechanical view evidently tends to favour the notion of
the essential equality of all men. What is perhaps even more
important is that the mechanical view made possible a
technological development that enabled the vast body of
mankind to look forward to a life free of back-breaking and soul-
destroying toil. Moreover, the ultimate decline of ancient
societies, basically through various forms of fragmentation,
conflict, and inner decay, would tend further to show that their
overall world-View was in some deep sense highly inadequate.

Perhaps, then, one could seek yet another model that would
combine the virtues of the organic model and the mechanical
model, allowing man to ‘have the best of both worlds’? At this
point it is necessary, however, to give pause and to ask whether
it is wise to go on with this process of exchanging one model for
another. Is the human mind actually capable of conforming to any
model at all? In view of what has been said about the formative
movement of the mind revealed in reason and in the act of
understanding, does it make sense to try to construct a model of
this movement?

Even if one does decide to adopt such a model, one first needs
an intelligent and rational perception, which indicates whether
any specified model is suitable or not. In any case, after adopting
a particular model, one needs further perception of this kind to
see its limits. For example, people who carry the model of a
courageous man too far are described as foolhardy; those who
try always to put other people’s welfare first, without considering
their own, are criticized as improvident; and those who carry
efficiency too far are said to be cold and inhuman. Only intelligent
and rational perception from moment to moment can deal
adequately with seeing how far any model should be carried in a
given case. So it is clear that such intelligent and rational
perception is the prime necessity, even when it comes to dealing
with models. For models are fixed, and reality is eternally
changing, going beyond the limits comprehended in particular
models. Moreover, the ability of the mind to see contradictions
between model and reality evidently also has to go beyond any
particular model.

As indicated in the discussion of formative cause, reality may be

likened to the flowing movement of a stream, producing
eternally-changing forms, such as vortices, ripples, waves. Our
thoughts can model these forms, but cannot model the flowing
movement in its totality. This is so not only with regard to the
physical universe, but, even more, with regard to the flowing
movement of awareness, in which our thoughts are themselves
merely evanescent forms. When these forms recur systematically,
then we have organized ideas; otherwise, only ephemeral
images. What can it possibly mean for such superficial forms to
model the whole movement that creates, sustains, and eventually
dissolves them?

Scientific, technical, and practical experience over the ages has

indeed shown that the attempt to impose a firmly-fixed model
upon the flowing movement of nature eventually leads to
contradiction. Clearly this is even more apt to occur when the
mind attempts to impose such a fixed model on its own flowing
movement. The resulting contradiction brings about conflict,
which is the attempt of one aspect of the mind to impose its
pattern on another, with a resulting split of the mind into
opposing fragments. This process, in which the mind divides
against itself by attempting to conform to a model, is in essence
the root of what has in other contexts been called neurosis. Such
neurosis, which is present in all of us to a greater or lesser
degree, evidently impedes a generally relevant and appropriate
response to life as a whole, by breaking up thinking, feeling, and
outward action into parts that work against one another.

We are thus led to give serious attention to the fact that the mind
is not a ‘thing’ of which one can sensibly form a model. Rather,
we may explore the notion that the mind is to be considered
primarily in its formative activity as a flowing movement, and only
secondarily through the relatively fixed forms of ideas and
concepts, which are the product of this activity, and which are
the essential basis of all models. Note here that we are not
proposing the notion of formative cause as a model of the activity
of the mind. Rather, this notion is to serve as a sort of metaphor,
that ‘points to’, or indicates, a movement of which we can all be
immediately aware. This movement cannot be specified in detail;
but nevertheless, from it emerge all the specifiable forms, ideas,
models, etc. that can be entertained in thought.

It is clear, then, that what is under consideration here is a

thoroughgoing change in the nature of thought itself; i.e. a
change in which the mind ceases to try to shape and control its
own activity by thinking about a model of human nature and
trying to impose this model on its own thoughts, feelings, and
outward actions. This change has to be explored and
experimented with; for the deeper nature of the mind is
essentially unknown. To try to specify this change in detail at the
outset would be like trying to anticipate the content of a flash of
understanding before the latter has actually occurred. Indeed, it
would in effect be an attempt to make a model of what it means
to think without being dominated by a model, a procedure that
would evidently be meaningless in terms of what is being
suggested here.

To consider such a change properly, one has rather to

understand thought more deeply. As has been seen, one may
distinguish two poles, between which all thought moves: thought
following mechanically through associations which constitute a
series of efficient causes, and thought forming creatively in new
totalities, through that aspect of intelligent perception that is
called reason.

We shall begin with a discussion of the more mechanical aspect

of thought; i.e. with thought that proceeds through a series of
efficient causes. Clearly any sort of efficient cause involves
the order of time in a fundamental way. Now, quite generally, the
order of time is abstracted from movement and change. But this
abstraction is itself present only in the content of thought, and
does not correspond to some directly and immediately perceived
reality. Thus, if one reflects a bit, one sees that the past is gone. It
is in fact known only in memory. Memory itself is active in the
present moment, but the content of its imagery refers to a past
that no longer exists. Similarly, the expected future is always
known only in thought, operating in the present, but referring to
what is to come and does not yet exist (and, indeed, to what may
never exist). If we take the ordinary view of time as a sort of linear
order, however, the present is to be regarded as a dividing point
between past and future. Since neither of these exist, it would
follow also that the present does not exist either. In other words,
there is no past, no present, and no future.

This paradoxical conclusion has its root basically in the fact that
time is not a reality that exists independently of thought about it,
but that, as indicated earlier, it is an abstraction, knowable only in
thought, and thus not capable of being perceived directly and
immediately. Indeed, as is quite evident, one never observes time
as such. One observes the position of a clock indicator, or a star,
or some other such thing, or one observes changes in the
structure or state of being of some object or system. All of these
are forms produced in the universal flux or flowing movement of
reality as a whole, and abstracted in thought. As pointed out
earlier, in so far as the features abstracted are recurrent and
stable, an overall order of cause and effect may reveal itself in the
way in which the various forms succeed each other, with effect
following cause in a regular way, always at a later time. But to
understand the whole process deeply, one cannot begin with the
sequence of abstracted product-forms; rather, one has to begin
with the whole flowing movement, which carries the formative
activity that creates these product-forms, and explains the order
in which they succeed one another.

Such an understanding has to comprehend not only the

formative activity underlying natural process, but also the
formative activity underlying thought itself. For if we treat thought
as some sort of ultimate truth beyond the limits of the mutability
of natural things, we will fall into contradiction, because we
ignore the evident fact that thought is inseparably involved in that
process of change from which time has been abstracted.

The illusion that the content of thought may have a validity

beyond time is given some apparent support by the fact that
one’s thought at a given moment contains an image in principle
capable of covering all time. As one thinks, one can, as it were,
sweep over the whole of time without limits, in a single glance.
But in doing this, one is liable to ignore the fact that thought is
not only about the order of time in the way just described, it
is of the order of time as well. One thought succeeds another
through association or through response to new perceptions, and
in this way what seemed to be an eternal truth is seen later to be
limited, or even false, so that it falls under the dominion of time.
In other words, our thought is itself a functioning reality, a
process that is taking place in the order of time.

The process of thought may be regarded in the first instance as

containing a model of a time-order. But what is more important is
that the time-order that is modelled in the content of thought is in
essence the same as the time-order that is actually created in
the functioning of thought. We have learned through much re-
enforced habit and conditioning to project this order into those
fairly regular and recurrent aspects of natural process (e.g. day
and night, the seasons, etc.) which can be seen to be, in a
certain sense, similar to the order of thought.

It is important, however, to consider the fact that in primitive

stages of development the organization of human society tended
on the whole to be much less based on the order of time than is
our own, so that men did not then give the time-order nearly so
great a significance as we do now. But later, as man developed
his civilization and arranged his technology according to the
order of time, he created an apparently universal and pervasive
environment that is built into a time-structure. Thus, his overall
experience seemed to confirm him in the belief that the time-
order is not merely a useful and perhaps necessary way of co-
ordinating practical, technical and other social activities, but,
much more, the universal ground of all existence. So man was
led to project this time-order into the totality of his being,
physical and mental, and to suppose that this projection covered
all that could possibly be significant about the whole of life. That
is to say, man made a mental model of himself, in which he saw
himself entirely within the framework of a time-order.

To do this leads however to very important consequences. For as

has now been seen, any thought in the framework of time is not
just a potentially informative abstraction. Rather, it is a
functioning and operating reality, that continues and maintains
itself in a process, in which one association leads automatically
to another. So, to develop a model of the self, conceived in the
order of time, is to create a mechanical order of real activity
which is a product of the model. This means however that such a
model of the self does not remain a mere model, but that it
actually becomes the self.

This sort of effect is indeed already well known in common

experience. Thus, if a child is systematically frightened, he
develops a model of a timid, fearful, inadequate self. This model
contains fear-sensations similar to those that may arise in the
presence of real danger, which include even physiological effects,
such as the release of adrenalin, and increase of the rate of beat
of the heart. In other words, a mental model of fear is fear.
Similarly, a mental model of a time-order is a time-order. And a
mental model of a self is a self.

This sort of complication need not arise in connection with

models of things that are essentially independent of the process
of thought (which are to be understood as recurrent and stable
forms in the totality of the flowing movement). Thus, one can
have in one’s thoughts all kinds of models of objects (e.g. tables,
chairs, houses), and their possible relationships, extending
onward to engineering models of machinery and to scientific
models of the atomic structure of matter, planetary orbits,
galaxies, quasars, etc. One may have mechanical models,
organic models, or models of any other kind that one may be
able to think of. In this domain (the limits of which have to be
seen in each case through intelligent perception) models are
evidently both useful and necessary, so that it would be absurd
to try to do without them.

However, to make a model of the self is, as has been seen, to

allow one’s thought to create the very reality of which it is
supposed to be only a model, in such a way that in this reality
one part of the mind is trying to split off from the rest, and to
impose its pattern on the whole flowing movement. To do this is
evidently a form of fragmentation and confusion, resulting from
an attempt to carry out a contradiction. Put explicitly, the
contradiction is this: thought, which is fixed and limited in the
form of particular models, is attempting the impossible task of
controlling the unknown and unlimited flowing movement of the
mind, which continually produces and changes all the content of
the mind in unforeseeable ways, including even the very thought
that is trying to maintain control.

Is it not then possible for models of the self to cease to operate,

and thus to bring to an end this contradiction, with its attendant
general fragmentation and confusion?

When a leaf dies, one can still see its form, which serves to reveal
its whole structure and the order of development from which it
has arisen as a product. But its inner formative activity has
ceased, so that it will gradually wither away and dissolve. Our
question is thus equivalent to asking whether the general
formative activity underlying all models of the self can die in a
similar way so that this activity too will wither away and dissolve.

The ending of the formative activity that creates a model of the

self (or of human nature more generally) implies a very deep
change in the order of operation of the mind, which could
perhaps be called a mutation; i.e. a beginning of a new evolution,
in which intelligent and rational perception, rather than the
automatic and repetitive function of models of the self, would be
the main formative cause of man’s activity. As indicated earlier, it
makes no sense to try to give a detailed description of this
evolution before it takes place. But one can perhaps give some
sort of overall feeling for what is to be meant here by saying that,
in general, it implies that what one does is less important than
why one does it. That is to say, the question ‘Why?’ points to the
inner formative activity, while the question ‘What?’ points in a
much more restricted way to a particular product of this activity.
Even if this product is right on a given occasion, the long-run
implications will be wrong if the universal formative activity is
wrong. To be aware of this requires an intelligent perception
which can reveal directly and immediately (i.e. not in terms of a
time sequence of associative changes) how the formative activity
arising in models of the self is actually an attempt to carry out the
general contradiction that is implicit in all such models. When this
contradiction is perceived not merely with regard to content, but
also in the actual formative movement of one’s own thinking and
feeling, then (as happens with any contradiction perceived in this
way) the activity in question withers and dies.

Of course, to suggest such a notion of man’s nature as

contingent and capable of fundamental change when the deep
contradictions in thought are perceived and understood raises
enormous issues, which could be discussed adequately only in a
sustained and serious work of common inquiry. Here we can
touch on only a few salient points.

Among these, we may consider the question of how we may

regard morals and ethics. It is well known that, for the most part,
men have in this domain attempted to conform to various models
of right behaviour, right thinking, and right feeling. But it is also
well known that these models have not worked very well. For
example, man has for thousands of years accepted the
elementary injunction not to kill, and along with this has gone the
model of the good man, to whom killing is abhorrent.
Nevertheless, killing in every conceivable form has continued
over these thousands of years, often reaching a vast scale. What
is especially significant here is that man has never lacked for
models that make killing seem necessary and right (e.g. honour,
glory, duty to family, country, God, etc.).

Given any model, man can always conceive of a different model,

which may be anything between a small modification of the
original one and something that is opposite to the original in
essential respects. Thus, for example, the injunction against
killing may be modified to the form ‘Do not kill, except in certain
cases’. Within these exceptions, men may first place defence of
what is sacred, defence of the security and interests of the
nation, of the family, of the self, etc., until finally they may in
effect be able to go as far as to think: ‘I must not kill, except
when someone is preventing me from getting something I want
very much.’

One can see by looking at what is known of history over the past
five thousand years or so that this sort of process of steady
sliding away from the meaning of moral and ethical injunctions
has been extremely common. Indeed, a major part of this history
would be a chronicle of how men who were fairly moral and
ethical in ordinary times somehow found themselves engaged in
countless wars, large and small, with their attendant massacre,
pillage, robbery, enslavement, mass starvation and death through
plague, senseless destruction of material resources, and so on.

The key difficulty is that clear and intelligent perception is

needed, particularly in times of stress or when strong passions
are at work, for under these conditions men can easily be
swayed to adopt any model that assuages their sense of fear,
rage, hurt pride, etc., or that otherwise justifies them in doing
whatever it is that they may happen very strongly to want to do. It
is evidently very hard to keep the mind clear under such critical
conditions. This is made even more difficult by the fact that, at
bottom, models are arbitrary, so that in times of stress and
conflict no unshakeable reason can actually be found for
adhering to any particular set of moral or ethical models. Why, for
example, should a man hold to the model of civilized kindly co-
operative human behaviour, when inwardly he may be burning
with indignation and hatred for those who have treated his nation
badly, trampled on all that he feels to be sacred and dear, etc.?

As indicated earlier, the real question to raise in this context is

not ‘Which model is right?’ but rather ‘Why is one behaving as
one is?’ Here we are not merely asking for some superficial
reason that is ready to hand, but rather for the deep forming
movement that has to be seen in an act of perception as
revolutionary as that which Newton or Einstein needed to set
physics on a new course of development.

I would like to emphasize that at this depth the source of

irrational, violent, and ultimately self-destroying reactions is a
wrong mode of functioning of the general model-making activity,
which has been caught up in models of the self. As has been
seen, to adhere to a model of the self is to create and give
sustenance to an actual time-process of a rather mechanical kind
in which there is a confused attempt to split the mind into one
part that tries to maintain control and another part that is
apparently being controlled.

What is, in the first instance, such an inward division in each man
then goes on, in further development, to give rise to a division
between one man and another, one group and another, one
religion and another, one nation and another, etc. For different
people with different backgrounds of experience and
conditioning will in general come to different models of the self.
But since these models imply an overall definition of what is
good, what is right, what is true, and, in general, what is the
necessary form of all human life, then ultimately men cannot do
other than fight to the death over them. That is to say, man’s
attempt to model his own nature has, built into it, an inner logic
leading to a split of the mind for the individual and to general
destruction for society as a whole.

In this regard perhaps one of the most important models is that

of different human beings, and groups of human beings, as
separately existent, and divided, as it were, by a deep chasm
that has somehow to be bridged, or that is perhaps even
unbridgeable. Evidently, as long as such models are generally
accepted, there is little or no real scope for a common co-
operative endeavour of people all over the earth which is now
needed if the natural resources of this planet are not soon to be
destroyed in a mindless scramble of each group to get what it
can for itself while something still remains to be got in this way.

With regard to the question of how this separative mode of

looking at oneself and the world originates, one may perhaps
speculate that at a certain stage a young child realizes that as he
calls himself ‘I’ and other people ‘you’, so each person calls
himself ‘I’ and other people ‘you’. This implies that ‘I’ and ‘you’
are the names of every man. Such an insight could in principle
point to a general formative activity, which might be called the
universal essence of humanity as a whole of which each person
is a particular case. Actually most children probably do sense
something like this, which could be expressed by saying, for
example: ‘If I had been exposed to all the conditions and
experiences of another person, I could have thought, felt, and
acted as he did.’ In other words, at the deepest level we all
participate in one inner formative movement, which we may be
said to observe and experience from different points of view. But
just as one person can understand why things look physically
different to another person who is differently placed, so mentally
we are all potentially capable of understanding the deep
formative cause underlying human behaviour in general which is
seen and experienced differently by each person.

But when a child grows up in a world in which the notion of

separateness is accepted as truth, he is gradually conditioned to
operate according to the corresponding models of divisions
among men. In this way his potential insight into the oneness of
humanity is blocked. Thereafter his experience will be such as
apparently to prove and confirm the reality of the divisions
among men, as portrayed in the model. What is missed in this is
a perception of the fact that the behaviour which seems to prove
and confirm the model is mainly a result of the operation of the
model itself. Thus before young children have learned about the
model of races as fundamentally different sorts of human being,
they generally have no difficulty in relationships with people of
different skin colour. But afterwards they may, in such
relationships, experience a sense of fear and revulsion, which
serves to create the very barriers that the model claims merely to
represent and describe.

Evidently this sort of reaction is only a special case of the general

activity of models of the self. Such models lead to an impasse, in
which the problems of humanity cannot be solved because
attempts to solve them are confused by mistaking the activity
produced mainly by the model of the self for an independent and
substantial reality that appears to have to be given first priority in
any acceptable solution.

The only way out of this impasse is for men to see the
meaninglessness of all these models, so that the confusion can
die away. Men may then be able to understand one another
deeply, and so, to act from a sense of the oneness of humanity.
What is needed here is not an action from a ‘model of oneness’,
but rather an action from the direct and immediate perception
that the deep cause of all human action is a universal formative
movement. Such perception allows each man to have a sense of
what it is that moves other men and makes them act as they do,
which arises from an immediate feeling for their conditioning as
potentially or even actually his own. When people who have such
a perception get together, they will be able to come to a common
understanding that is not blocked by the meaningless models to
which each person has been conditioned.

More generally, in all human relationships, we have to be free of

the constraining and distorting notion that human nature is some
well-defined sort of ‘thing’ that can in principle be known and
specified in terms of models of the self. Human nature in its
totality and all the essential abstractions from it, such as beauty,
truth, rationality – are not ‘things’, but aspects of a whole
movement. ‘Things’ can properly be conceived in terms of
models. But the whole movement of human nature cannot be
contained in any models. Rather it is capable of continually
revealing itself anew in fresh and unexpected ways that are in
essence inexhaustible.
When we are aware of both the contradictory content of our
models of human nature and their limiting and distorting
influence in the deep formative activity of the mind, these models
will drop away, and there will be no specifiable limits to human
nature.

The real question – which has to be explored deeply rather than

given a ready answer – is then: can we live without depending on
models of human nature?

Addendum: Résumé of
Discussion
An extensive discussion followed the lecture on which this essay
is based. This discussion will be summarized here not in detail
but rather with regard to presenting what seemed to the speaker
to be the essential questions that it brought out.

A great deal of the earlier parts of the discussion centred on the

question of how far models could properly be used. In the
beginning it was necessary to emphasize that in the practical,
functional, technical and scientific domains there is a vast scope
for models of all kinds. But then more subtle questions were
raised. Thus: can we not make models of the thought process
itself?

If we have in mind the process of associative thought with its

relatively mechanical sequence of efficient causes, a model of it
may well give us important insights into how it works. But we
have to be careful here, or else we may slip into trying in a similar
way to develop a model of reason as a whole, i.e. of the creative
movement of perception through the intellect which gives rise to
new totalities of concepts and ideas. To try to make a model of
reason would be meaningless, because reason is the formative
movement that creates all models and ultimately shows their
limits.

What is perhaps even more important in this context, however, is

that if we attempt to make a model of mental processes or states
of feeling with which we identify our whole being (as is implicit in
models of the self) this will lead to all the contradiction and
confusion already discussed earlier. Consider, for example, a
person who is given to dishonesty and self-deception. Suppose
that on suddenly realizing that he has such tendencies this
person were to try to construct or find a model of honesty and
truth to which he would attempt to conform. This would evidently
make no sense. For since this person is in the habit of self-
deception he will inevitably deceive himself further about his
attempts to ‘become an honest man’. Rather, the right question
in this context is: ‘Why am I caught in self-deception?’ This
question, if asked seriously, may point to what is going on at the
deep formative levels of the mind. Generally speaking, one can,
through such a question, see that self-deception originates in the
automatic, habitual and largely unconscious operation of models
that was picked up in early childhood. A typical model of this
kind is that the self is highly inadequate, but that to be aware of
this is almost unbearably painful, because the self ought to be
essentially perfect. So the mind covers up the sense of
inadequacy, and seeks any form of self-deception (e.g. accepting
flattery from others) that momentarily eases the sense of pain
produced by the operation of the model of an inadequate self.

A great deal of confusion originates in men’s efforts to identify

themselves with models of truth, honesty, courage, power and
effectiveness, kindliness, love, etc. Thus, it is well known that in
battle most men are afraid but feel impelled to conform to a
model of courageous behaviour. The fear then comes out in
confused behaviour in other contexts, of which the person is
largely unaware. Similarly, parents commonly imply to their
children that love consists of modelling themselves on what the
parents think is right, good, true, etc. Such conformity is not real
love, but rather a form of fear. Moreover, it must evidently destroy
originality and intelligence: once a child learns to accept a notion
of the self because not to do so would displease his parents,
then he has started an overall movement of undiscriminating
conformity in the deep activity of the mind as a whole. A child
should never be asked to accept a model of love, truth, honesty,
etc., because these are not specifiable ‘things’, which can
sensibly be modelled, but rather, have to be discovered in the
unlimited flowing movement of life as a whole. Indeed, he should
not really be asked even to accept a technical or practical model
before he understands the reason for doing so. Otherwise (as has
been brought out in some modern inquiries into the education of
children) he is being taught the habit of unquestioning conformity
in the deeper levels of the mind, and this is incompatible with
true intelligence.

The question was then raised about the validity of psychological

analyses, such as those of Freud, Jung and others. Evidently
these contain models of the mind, such as, for example, Freud’s
division between conscious and unconscious layers in terms of
the concepts of Id, Ego and Superego. Such models have to be
considered with the utmost care and attention. Thus to assert
that in some general sense a large part of the operation of the
mind is not consciously known is one thing; but to give the
content of a particular model to the unconscious is another. Here
there is the distinct danger (proved very often in practice) that the
operation of the model will (as generally happens with models of
the self) tend to create the very thing of which it is supposed to
be only a model. To do this, however, is to add to the confusion
rather than to help to clear it up.

Further questions were raised about the possibility of making

models of a person’s knowledge. For example, one can say of a
certain person that he is a physicist, a plumber, or something
else. To do this is to make a mental model of him as possessing
a certain knowledge (or skill).

Such a model may be appropriate, provided its use is limited to a

suitable context (which has to be seen in each case anew, in an
act of intelligent perception). For knowledge is part of the
associative side of thought, and is thus only some limited aspect
of the mind as a whole. However, if a person identifies himself
with such knowledge and skill, then this becomes part of a model
of the self with all its attendant fragmentation and confusion. For
example, a man who identified himself with his knowledge of
physics would feel very uncomfortable on learning that key
aspects of his knowledge were wrong or mistaken. As a result he
would tend to deceive himself by overlooking or distorting
evidence of error in his knowledge, so that his ability to work
properly in physics would be greatly impeded.

Similar difficulties with models arise when a person tries to be

completely certain, or sure that he is on the right track. For
example, it was asked in the discussion what are the criteria for
knowing whether or not one has transcended models of the self.
This is equivalent to asking for a model of a self that has
transcended models of the self. One has to consider first why
such a question is asked. The reason is easily seen to be that the
prevailing model of the self is one with great uncertainty and
insecurity, one that evidently calls for a new model in which this
uncertainty and insecurity are removed.

Actually the attempt to be sure that one is free of models of the

self is irrelevant and a source of distortion. Thus, for example, if
Einstein had begun by asking himself how he could be sure that
he had transcended Newtonian mechanics, this would have so
blocked his mind that he could never have inquired freely without
fear of failure, as is needed for any original discovery. In fact,
creative work can generally take place only when attention is
totally devoted to whatever is being done, and this is not
possible when one is thinking about the self, which always brings
in an irrelevant fear of the unknown, that tends to keep the mind
a prisoner of its old way of thinking. A similar creative freedom,
but at a yet higher level, is needed to discover how our models of
the self produce this fear of the unknown.

In this connection, it may be added that we have a wide range of

models of death, which are aimed largely at easing the sense of
fear of the unknown that is implicit in models of the self. Our
understanding of the functioning of such models can play a key
role in determining whether we live in creative freedom or in fear.
Thus it is quite easy to see, when someone dies, that the inner
formative activity of the body has ceased, so that the latter must
start to dissolve and disintegrate. But generally speaking this is
not the aspect of death that must interest us. Rather the main
question is usually ‘What will happen to me?’, meaning by ‘me’
some ‘inner spiritual essence’ or ‘soul’ concerning the fate of
which there is usually a great deal of fear.

In earlier times men came to propose that in one sense or other

the ‘me’ survives death and goes on living in some other realm or
domain. This model evidently helped to assuage the deep fear
that is often raised by the notion that the ‘me’ does not survive
(though it led to further uncertainties as to how the ‘me’ would be
treated in the life to come after death). On the other hand, in
more modern times, death has become a topic that people would
prefer to avoid, though evidently the fear connected with it is as
deep as ever. For death is both universal and necessary, so that if
fear prevents us from considering it in a clear and rational way
there will be a pervasive effect on how the whole mind works and
thus on how we live.

If one looks at this question carefully, one sees that there is as

little reason to make a model of death as there is to make a
model of life as a whole. The ultimate meaning of death is
unknown. The model that we will go on after the death of the
body evidently has no basis in fact. What is perhaps less evident,
though no less true, is that the model of death of the body as the
absolute end has also no basis in fact. Actually we have no way
of knowing what, if anything, happens to the individual after
death. To suppose that he comes to an end may give rise to an
easing of tension that results from seeming to know, which
removes the unpleasant sense of uncertainty about the future.
But to accept this notion as true is a form of self-deception, not
deeply different from accepting the notion that one is certain of
survival after death. The two notions are basically equivalent, in
that they create a confused movement in the deeper formative
activity of the mind, which tends to destroy both real intelligence
and true feeling.

Why is it generally difficult to remain with the simple fact that one
does not know what, if anything, follows death? Is it, as was
suggested in the discussion, simply that one is curious to know?
Or is it not that the mind is seeking a sense of security, and is
ready to take what is false as true if to do so will make things
seem certain and secure so that one feels more at ease in
oneself?

Without this meaningless search for the illusion of security about

death, the mind may then perhaps be able, naturally and
spontaneously, to cease to make models, in the whole of that
domain in which models have no proper function.

At this point, the question was raised: if freedom from models is

equivalent, in a certain sense, to spontaneity, does this mean that
our social institutions, being based on models, have to be
dropped, if we are to be what we really are, rather than what our
social institutions require us to be?

Here, it is first of all necessary to point out that a great deal of

what is called spontaneity is illusory. Thus a person conditioned
to identify with a model of power and dominance will feel urges
that appear spontaneous to him, to assert himself and to insist
on his own way. What is at issue here is true spontaneity. This
cannot be defined, specified, or sought, as to do so is, in effect,
to make a model of spontaneity – which is absurd. It may,
however, be said that true spontaneity is what arises naturally
and of its own accord when models of the self have ceased to
impede it. In other words, the problem is the negative one of
discovering the (largely though not entirely) unconscious models
that prevent spontaneity.

With regard to the establishment of social institutions, the key

question is (as always): ‘Why do these prevent spontaneity?’
rather than ‘What is wrong with them?’ If one is at all observant,
one will see that one has a strong tendency to identify with such
institutions and thus to incorporate them into one’s model of the
self. All of us can, if perhaps only fleetingly, sense the hollowness
of the model of the self, which from time to time ‘frays at the
edges’ and thus lets through a glimpse of the fact that there is no
solid and substantial reality beneath it. Therefore men have
sought to identify the self with something broader, deeper, and
more stable, such as social institutions. Thus when one feels that
one belongs to such institutions, and that in them one has a
place in which one’s existence and value are outwardly and
publicly recognized, the unpleasant sense of ‘being a nonentity’
is assuaged.

The difficulty with this sort of reaction is that one can no longer
rationally consider serious changes in social institutions. When
such changes are proposed, it seems that one’s whole being is
threatened. And when the institutions start to develop insoluble
contradictions and inner conflicts, the mind engages in self-
deception, to cover up this fact and to make it appear that the
problems are not serious. This not only prevents institutions from
adapting to a changing situation, but more important, it tends to
create in the formative activity of the members of the whole
society a destructive movement of self-deception and general
confusion that ultimately invades every aspect of life.

The real trouble is then not mainly with social institutions as such
but rather with our models of the self, which tend to incorporate
these institutions and thus to make them unworkable.
We need some kinds of social institutions and organizations, to
enable us to co-operate in a generally orderly way. Thus it is clear
that unless everyone drives on the same side of the road, chaos
will ensue, and that nobody really wants this to happen. For
everyone to agree to keep to the same side of the road is then
not really a significant barrier to spontaneity. On the contrary, to
have cars driven at random on both sides of the road would be a
truly serious interference with one’s spontaneous wishes to travel
from one place to another. Similarly, all can see the need for
establishing a certain common social order in which each person
has to cooperate in maintaining essential services such as food,
water, sanitation, electric power, communications. Without these
services, our possibilities for true spontaneity would evidently be
greatly decreased. In principle, the forms of the institutions and
organizations which are needed to make such activities possible
have to be subject to unceasing free discussion; for otherwise
they will soon fail to adapt to the ever-changing situation in which
they operate. What prevents this free discussion now is the
identification of the self with these institutions.

Evidently no change of society which leaves people identified

with their social institutions will really end the basic contradiction
in such institutions. So to understand the role of models of the
self is crucial if we are ever to understand the chaotic structure
that society has rather generally shown throughout recorded
history, and thus to begin to bring this chaos to an end.

Finally, a question was raised concerning possible means of

favouring and furthering the awareness of the workings of
models of the self. It was suggested that the consideration of
history and studies of other cultures would show up the relativity
of particular models, their dependence on special conditions and
contexts of development, so that our thinking could, in some
degree, cease to be based on such models. Studies of this sort
could evidently be helpful, as could also attempts to
communicate with the higher animals, such as dolphins and
chimpanzees, whose way of thinking may be different from our
own and yet ultimately comprehensible to us in essence. But
more than this, what is primarily required is a growing realization
that models of the self are actually operating, so generally and so
pervasively, to confuse almost everything that we try to do. Such
a realization would give the inquiry into the overall operation of
these models that sense of urgency and energy which is needed
to meet the true magnitude of the difficulties with which such
models are confronting us.